I started writing this for my own personal archives, but as I got further into it I thought it might be interesting to some for the way my experiences on a single night out more broadly reflect what it means to be actively involved in a community, and the kind of complex and intricate history it comes to hold, both collectively and personally. that communities are made up of many different types of people, and that being part of a community requires understanding that. over time, your personal histories with other people will vary greatly, but all of it is illustrative of human connection in general. no community is perfect, or made up of all good people, or even people you will always agree with or like. accepting that and being able to navigate your community environment regardless is a crucial element of personal growth. as always, this is entirely subjective, perhaps especially this time because it started as a diary entry.
nothing underscored how much my life has changed in the last year than Butch/Stud last week.
when I read my piece, ‘the old butch way’, at last year’s Butch/Stud, it was my unofficial return to a community I had been isolated from for around five years. following a series of traumatic events – my sugar daddy suddenly dying and being cut out by his family, an abusive relationship with a trans man, and being stalked for two years by another sex worker – I had a nervous breakdown and suffered from severe C-PTSD that drove me indoors, cut me off from most of the world around me, and left me with the profound sense that my future was nothing but a yawning black hole.
while I had had a very remote sort of contact through facebook with a few friends from the community, I had kept largely to myself, mired in hyper-vigilance, paranoia, distrust and a great deal of bitterness and anger.
I arrived at Butch/Stud last year, having realised a few months earlier that isolation was not doing much to aid my ongoing recovery, and determined to thrust myself back into the heart of a fem lesbian life.
I didn’t really know anyone there that night, save a small handful of people I had either met only recently, or hadn’t really been around for a number of years. I was nervous, felt somewhat displaced and crazed with the desire to belong, terrified I would be rejected. it was a great night and a great time, but I was still so affected by what I had been through, and still felt so much like an outsider.
this year was completely different. in so many ways that I feel compelled to make a record of it, an anecdotal account for my personal recollections, a means of processing how much can change in a year, and how wonderfully. when it once felt – not so very long ago – like such possibility would never again be within reach.
my date for the night was a charming, kind, old school butch I have been seeing for about four months now with increasing seriousness, a handsome chef who is constantly hit on by fems and other butches alike. earlier that day she had told me about a trio of young fems who had come into her store and asked about seeing her around with ‘that very pretty blonde lady’ and if we were girlfriends – if she had a girlfriend – with pretty obvious intent. for Valentine’s, she had given me a small bottle of Joy, by Jean Patou, a perfume I have been wanting for years but always putting off due to its cost. one of the most expensive perfumes in the world, it’s an iconic fragrance renowned for the artistry of its composition, and its feminine but sensual aroma. I was profoundly thrilled and touched by this gift, especially as things have been a little rough lately and it was a welcome and unexpected bright moment. I wore it for the first time that night, so excited to ‘debut’ this perfume I have so long desired. frivolous as that may seem, it was something that held significance for me, the idea of that fragrance becoming for the first time an element of my image. acquiring it had the same sort of meaning that acquiring a Mason Pearson hairbrush or a pot of Creme de la Mer did – iconic hallmarks of feminine grooming. it’s the statement the scent makes that is so powerful, especially the statement it would make about me as a fem lesbian when I wore it. this butch is so kind, thoughtful and generous and makes me wonder constantly how I got so lucky – she is simply dreamy. I’ll be riding on the back of her motorbike as the Dykes on Bikes lead the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade, an annual tradition since the 80s. it has always been my fantasy to be with the DOB in the parade and finally now it will happen – and with such a wonderful butch.
over the last year I have become friendly with the event organiser – who is appearing in the local production of The Butch Monologues – and have known her girlfriend for years besides, the both of us being longtime sex workers. when online tickets sold out and some of my baby butch & fem friends had missed them, I arranged for door tickets to be reserved in their names so they could make it. the events being accessible for young people is incredibly important to the organiser, who also freely gives out discount and comp tickets for those who can’t afford it otherwise. I met one of these young fems when her butch had arranged nail art for her as a birthday gift, having learned about me through a friend of hers. another followed me on instagram and came along to my garage sale, where we met for the first time. I have been making friends with them over the last several months and it’s incredibly rewarding to have these sweet intergenerational connections and the joy of watching young lesbians discover themselves and live out and proud. they’d all come back to my place a couple weeks ago after a drag king night, where they were thrilled to see Private Pleasures, the first lesbian porn by lesbians for lesbians I spoke about in this review a few months ago, and to hear the fascinating history behind its making. one of these fems wore the shoes I’d hoped she would take from what I was passing on – black satin stilettos, heels covered in crystals – paired with a sheer, tight black dress that looked incredible on her. another is a sex worker, fairly new to the industry, who’d sought my support -gladly given – over an issue she’d been dealing with. she’d got the first leopard print faux fur coat I’d ever bought for myself, some twenty years ago. they are both so unbelievably beautiful, and also sweet, kind, smart, funny, unique people and I feel so privileged to know them and be their mama fem. it’s a responsibility I take very seriously. I work to keep a reasonable distance while still showing interest in their lives, answer questions honestly whilst not thrusting my opinions on them, and affirm the individuality of their experiences and journeys. the butch & fem couple had come to me to get their nails done for Valentine’s day – each getting a photo of the other printed on their nails. the butch had very sweetly gifted me some pink macarons, flavoured raspberry, chocolate and vanilla. they all loved the night and enjoyed the shows, as well as just generally being in the community and that particular space immensely. I felt so happy that there was an event on that spoke specifically to butch and fem history and culture that they could be at as they start their adult lives. maybe next year one of them will be on stage?
especially as this event draws so many butches and fems to it – with the result that never is there another time where there is such a concentration of us in one space. I will see other butches and fems at any event in the community, but never so many of us all together. significantly also because the spaces I move in tend to have the same faces – and there were all new ones there. so many new ones. as I felt last year, I wished we more frequently had a butch/fem crowd like that gathered together, mingling and flirting. I wonder if it could ever be possible, these days. a wide mix of generations, with some achingly handsome youths and dangerously desirable older studs, it was truly dizzying to be a fem in that room. so many of us were elbowing each other and clutching each other’s hands excitedly as we surveyed the space. I hope the butches were feeling the same about all the fems there! that said, of course there were many butch4butch and femme4femme people in attendance as well, and those whose history has been mingled. that’s always been typical in our community.
I’ve been sick for several weeks with a relentless kind of flu, which hindered work on my performance for the night. having gone from stalker-induced stage-fright, where I was fairly sure I would never want to be on a stage again, to deciding – why not do a little strip tease? – I was frantically choreographing a routine in stifling 30+ degree heat in my apartment the day of the show, amidst hacking fits of coughing and trying to clear my sinuses. I’d finished writing the spoken word piece a couple of days earlier and though it had meandered from what I had originally envisioned, there wasn’t much I could do about it. I had to trust that I made my point eloquently enough and hope that people would enjoy it. I’d compiled a black & white montage of butches from throughout the last century and a bit that was projected onto a screen as I stripped in front of it, to the old adopted lesbian classic ‘Never Loved A Man’. I was somewhat apprehensive about the strip aspect, concerned it recentered the show onto myself as a fem. I spoke to the organiser about it who enthusiastically allayed my concerns by saying: ‘uhhhh no, the butches will love it!!!’
the intention behind it was to further the overall message of the show, which was the beauty of butches and my desire for them – a short, sensual strip while their images played over my body and the screen behind me, emphasising my devotion and how my fem image has been developed with them in mind. I haven’t performed in years, and while it came back to me quickly, as time grew ever nearer the nerves increased. interestingly, even though I used to perform all the time, I was far better equipped to cope with the nerves these days, due to all the work on mindfulness and grounding I’ve been doing as a means of dealing with paranoia and anxiety in social spaces. knowing I had a lot of friends in the audience was a big help too – and, as I reminded the organiser herself when she was dealing with her own nerves backstage, “they’re on your side”. it was really the best kind of audience to perform in front of – eager, loving and so supportive. the stage ran a gamut of experienced performers and first timers, all celebrated and enjoyed.
my overall sense of stability and calm was enabled through the endless positive connections I had with other people in the room. a femme I have known around fifteen years was there with her darling butch beau, a long-standing member of the community with a great deal of experience. while we’ve never been super close, we’ve always been on good, affectionate terms and I have long looked up to her as a slightly older femme with wisdom and perspective worth respecting. having had relationships with several trans men throughout her life, she is quite adamant about identifying as bisexual and having that respected by others. this is not just because she has genuinely listened to her partners and the trans community she considers herself an ally to, but because she recognises in herself the duality of her desire – that a trans male identity is distinct to a butch one, even if there can be a closely entwined history between the two, and even though she may eschew dating cis men for certain political reasons. having long tired of the stigma directed at bisexual women in the lesbian community – a stigma I believe factors into so many women’s choices to persist in calling themself lesbian despite openly pursuing trans men – she takes an active role in local bi pride organisations and I believe she’s marching with one for the Mardi Gras parade. her last relationship was six years with one of my only male friends – a trans man I used to get around with in his butch dyke days, who first reached out to me online after reading the lesbian vampire story I wrote at age twenty-one, our friendship now spanning close to twenty years. a few years ago he and I spent a drunken night in, writing and recording songs about our old lesbian clubbing days and the women we had loved and lusted after. we promised to marry each other if we hit thirty without having found our true love. how funny neither of us care about such things anymore, long after thirty has come and gone. whilst this femme and I have always been friends, after my show was done she made a very adorable performance of ‘having’ to brush up against me every time she moved in and out of her seat in a playfully flirtatious way. she’s never played with me like that before and amusingly, I felt quite flattered by it, like our relationship had shifted to another level. acceptance, belonging – it’s what we all crave at our core.
the videographer for the evening was another femme, a trans woman with a cis butch partner, a roller derby legend and generally sweet, lovely person who rather hilariously got into drag for the night. NO ONE recognised her at first glance, behind the wig, false moustache and stubble she’d powered along her jaw. I stood there talking to her for several moments, aware this person obviously knew me but striving frantically to place her, before the penny finally dropped. a rather epic transformation. a performer herself, she has a show she does that is partly erotic, partly educational, “The Ins & Outs of a Neo Vagina”, where she dilates and fucks herself onstage, her primary intention being to provide visibility for other trans women. she’s been thinking of starting sex work to supplement her income – an increasingly common reflection of the times – and asked me a while back to help provide some guidance and mentorship.
as has another femme I have known for over fifteen years who was there that night, our histories having been intermingled in the lesbian, queer and kink scene over the decades. another femme who I looked up to a great deal as a baby on the scene, she’s a cis woman with a punk mindset, a law degree and a prison abolition agenda. we’ve recently been reconnecting over our concerted efforts to improve our mental health and ‘work on our shit’. she’s been through hell over the last couple of years and, as I find these days, the people that are easiest for me to talk and relate to are those who’ve come out the other side of hell and left forever changed by it. there is an unspoken understanding I’ve found with such people that is singularly comforting, in which the weird quirks of trauma require no explanation. she has recently also started performing again, finding new strength and resilience within herself that demands creative expression. the nurturing of old friendships that waned during my years of isolation has been a crucial element of becoming integrated within my community again, and she is an individual I highly treasure for her incredible kindness, intelligence and fierceness. she was eight years in a relationship with a trans man who I also knew back in the day pre-transition and have my own history with – he was one of the only witnesses to another trans man assaulting me in a bar, someone who has gone on to achieve an untouchable status. I sometimes muse on this and how that status makes it pointless for me to try and have the assault acknowledged and accounted for. the man who witnessed it also intervened. sometimes I contemplate talking to him about it, more just to reassure myself that it really did happen, but our circles haven’t especially overlapped in years.
a butch who was this femme’s most recent ex-lover and dumped her by text, then characterised her disgusted response to that disrespect as “aggression”, was there with some of our mutual friends, so I made sure I checked in with her a few times. a reframed narrative by another with an agenda is usually one of the chief causes of people’s social anxiety in the community unfortunately. being aware of the potential impacts on each other due to how we are often obliged to share social space with those we can have complex histories with is an aspect of helping each other feel safe and supported and creating healthy community. we don’t all have to be friends, or even get along, but we are stuck in this community together. it’s always good to remember how your friends might be feeling in any given moment due to the dynamics in a space, and remind them they’re not dealing with difficult emotions alone at the same time as you generally interact with diplomacy and courtesy.
along those lines, I came face to face with a situation I have long feared having to deal with. It was something I had absolutely dreaded occurring at last year’s Butch/Stud, and was giddy with relief when it did not eventuate – at that time, I doubt I could’ve handled it.
when I was myself a baby fem, an older femme had taken me under her wing with the seeming desire to provide mentorship and support. in actuality her agenda had been to control the competition – she had tried the same tactics on others, who had been a little more savvy to her domineering ways and gently deflected the attention. at which point she became vengeful and vindictive and when I first hit the scene, she already had a reputation. the friendship was complicated and I’m not proud of some of my own behaviour and actions within it, but when it inevitably ended, what followed was eight years of almost relentless bullying, intimidation and harassment for which there is no justification. it was carried out through many means and methods, including incredibly malicious gossip, slander on public forums, the creation of t-shirts bearing abusive slogans, physical sexual harassment in community spaces and much, much more. much of this abuse was equally directed at my best fem friend, and centered on portraying us as “sluts and whores with no class” who were “unworthy of the name femme”. we were both sex workers – and so was the older femme, though she kept that a secret from the community in general. it all occurred at a time when there was little to no concept of safer spaces, or that bullying is a type of abuse capable of causing trauma – which it did to me. I had spent years terrified to the bone of showing up anywhere alone, in case she was there – but I also had no sense of being able to tell anyone how frightened and sick it made me feel, how incredibly unsafe. many were witness and well aware of the behaviour, but I was counselled to just “ignore it”. I did my best, but for a long, long time she didn’t stop. that best fem friend urged me numerous times to file police reports – but I never could bring myself to do it. acknowledging the depth of the impact her abuse had on me, how it affected my mental health and many of the choices that I made for upwards of a decade, was a central aspect when I started concertedly pursuing recovery.
although I was the primary target of this woman for a long time, she had lashed out at many other people in the community with similar behaviour. she has a pathological hatred of fat people, and targeted a great deal of abuse towards several fat femmes. her ex-husband, a trans man, ended up marrying another femme she had already jealously resented and she spent months giving them hell. when two people of colour, a butch and a femme, presented a stage show criticising Australia’s racism, she berated them to ‘go back where they came from’ on a public blog she kept for the sole purpose of writing vitriol about me and others in the community. she was well known for her rigid ideas around what constituted ‘authentic’ butch and fem identity and for leveraging those to make others around her feel inadequate. in the end, though she did her best to have me entirely alienated from community and to undermine my identity and sense of self – it was she who found herself sidelined and it is rare to see her in any community spaces these days, so widely disliked and distrusted is she, so many people has she hurt through bullying and harassment.
so I was staggered to see her there and for a moment it hit me really hard, so hard my knees shook and my stomach twisted up really painfully. I was on the verge of hurtling straight back into that same terrified, anxious, panicked state that she had cultivated so well in me for so many years.
but after a moment, it passed. I realised the truth: I had many friends in that room, she had none. the community she tried to deny to me is one I know I belong to through my own hard work, while her own actions have isolated her from it. and though so much of her rhetoric towards me had involved undermining my fem identity and claiming I had no right to it, I have well and truly grown into my own, and have done so without the need to tear others down. as I prepared to go on stage, her public rants and the tirades she had gone on in private flashed through my mind – the relentless, cruel mockery of mine and other people’s bodies, presentation, fashion choices, expressions of identity, creative works and on and on and on. a seemingly never ending fount of spite. I fretted for a moment of what she would say about me and my show to her date afterwards, or to whatever friends she has – but when the organiser announced my name, a loud cheer went up in response. I had so many friends there, and in different parts of the crowd. they were there to back me up. and so what if I’m not the greatest writer or performer – I tried, in honour of what I love, which is more than she’s ever done.
she and her date quietly disappeared after the second set. maybe they spent the whole ride home ridiculing and laughing at us all, for all the ways we failed to be the “right” kind of butch or fem, or “tried too hard”, or seemed “too desperate”, at those of us who are fat, or not “stylish”, at the soft butches and the punk femmes, but that’s their business. the rest of us had a wonderful night together as a community.
I performed in the first set, which meant afterwards I could just relax and enjoy the rest of the night, and the rest of the shows. several people came over to compliment my performance in incredibly kind and generous ways. one person commented that I write with so much obvious love – a comment I have received a few times, and that I think may be my favourite – because it’s what I want most to communicate, that love I have for butches, for the butch-fem dynamic, for our community. another favourite is when someone finds resonance to their own thoughts and feelings in my words – as another hoped-for objective is to give others in the community a reflection for themselves. for so long I felt like I could only find that in books written too long ago, and it was one of the things that prompted me to start writing about my fem perspective.
I was somewhat delighted when one of those who came over to me was a very cute butch I’d seen out sometime last year. we’d been making eyes at each other in a club for a while before we found ourselves elbow to elbow and she introduced herself. the attraction was obvious and mutual straight away. but another woman there had clearly set sights on her and handled the situation rather rudely – inserting herself between us as we chatted and deliberately shutting me out to start another conversation with this butch. now. all is fair in love and war. I don’t begrudge someone wanting to make a move on someone I might be interested in. but what I can’t stand is bullying. it’s a personal trigger for me – for reasons including the eight years of harassment that older femme subjected me to, and others that go all the way back to my oldest memories. that especially nasty tactic – intentionally closing someone out of a group discussion, willfully making people feel excluded and unwelcome – is one that has a profound effect on me. there are few things that arouse my sense of outrage and protectiveness more than being at a party and seeing someone by themselves, awkward and ill-at-ease, whilst others nearby keep their circle tight shut and ignore them. I’m always the person who will go up and talk to the one standing nervously alone, who will introduce them around and figure out how to make them comfortable. depending on my mood and who’s involved, I might gently say something like “I noticed this person by themselves, so I brought them over” or I’ll be more direct: “how about we open this circle up so we all feel welcome to be here!” the truth is, awkwardness and nerves are often as much a reason for people closing ranks as for people retreating to the wall, but it just isn’t good enough. most of us have been bullied or excluded and we know how horrible it feels. making the effort to just damn well smile at someone and let them know they’re welcome isn’t that fucking hard. not resorting to schoolyard tactics when socialising as adults is an important skill to learn. so when this woman ostentatiously and deliberately shut me out like that, it had a really bad effect on me. I wasn’t expecting something so overt, and didn’t have any psychological defences in place. again, this is something I think it’s really important to remember and consider in our community – a lot of us come with baggage. and if we can just remember that in the choices we make about how we behave, we can avoid causing more harm to each other. I tapped her on the shoulder and said to her face: “if you want to talk to her, that’s fine – you don’t need to be so rude and hostile to me about it though”. then I walked away. I also had a meltdown later on, as it set off a bad chain reaction of thoughts in my head (once the weird loser kid, always the weird loser kid), but I held it together there enough to make my point and keep my dignity.
so when i saw this butch on Friday, I was like – finally! we meet again! we smiled and said hi and she immediately apologised for that incident. I explained I just hated that kind of meanness, it was so unnecessary and contributed to a unpleasant environment for everyone. then I asked if they were still seeing each other and she – rather amusingly – was quick to explain no, absolutely not, she’d been fandangled into giving that woman a lift home, who had clearly planned for the night to end a certain way – but that it hadn’t. not that it mattered if it had, but I guess I was pleased because of that mean little power play not working out for her. like I said, all’s fair in love and war… but there are ways to do these things. anyway this butch asked for my number quick-smart after that, and I was glad to see her again.
meanwhile, my butch was seated in a row with a couple of people we’d met at the Black and White Ball back at the end of September – the night we also met! she’d had me swooning by escorting me to the cab, carrying my bag for me – ah, the night that began it all. it had not been without its own social complexities. we’d mingled with a gorgeous young femme whose very handsome older butch friend had escorted her up from Canberra for the night, seeing as how she didn’t know anyone in the Sydney community. we’d all chatted and flirted in varied arrangements, and much later my butch told me that the other butch had quite clearly been trying to set up some sort of match between my butch and the young femme: “have you met my friend here? could you watch my friend while I have a smoke? would you dance with her while I take a break?” I had myself figured out this young femme was interested in my butch, who wasn’t my butch then – and that I had to make my own move of sorts, as I was also very interested. the way I handled it was by joining the conversation and focusing kind attention on the femme, asking her questions about herself. I knew there was no point trying to compete for attention – it just makes things awkward and unpleasant and ultimately, her choice will be her choice regardless. by being present in a shared conversation, I gave her space to interact with both of us and ensured the young femme did not feel left out. several dates later, when we discussed the night, my butch confessed she hadn’t even been aware the young femme had been interested, and had only hoped that I was – so typical! the classic ‘2×4 butch’. this is why femmes have to be assertive and at least learn how to fake confidence and make the initial moves ourselves…
I came over to sit on my butch’s knee and canoodle, and she mentioned that the other butch had immediately asked if she remembered her femme friend when they sat down, that the femme had been flirtatious and smiley until she’d seen the two of us together.aAll is fair in love and war, but I don’t like being involved in anyone’s disappointment or hurt, and I felt for her. there’s not as much community in canberra and it can be a little lonesome. especially when you are very young and just setting out in the world. this young femme is so beautiful and lovely though – I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before she meets someone – or someones.
of course it wasn’t the only interest my butch got that night, but not all of it was especially welcome. she later told me about a butch-type who had started rather aggressively hitting on her at the bar – even after she said she was here with someone and wasn’t looking to meet anyone new right then. this person had continue to pursue – saying that my butch made them want to be all femme, then going so far as to lean in and nuzzle her neck. I was quite dismayed when I heard, as intimate physical contact when someone has said no is a boundary unacceptable to cross. as we continued to discuss the incident, the things my butch was saying about this person sounded so familiar and eventually I whipped out my phone and pulled up a facebook profile. “is this them?” I asked my butch, showing her the photo. it was. someone I had actually hooked up with for a fun one night stand earlier last year! a memorable occasion because we had ‘met’ crossing the road, our eyes catching and holding each other’s, immediate attraction palpable. this person doesn’t live in Sydney, but we have a lot of mutual friends and have stayed on friendly terms. they are a non-binary individual, who has a very strong fem side, and a very strong masc side. I’ve only ever experienced their masc side, but I’m well aware the fem side is not so different to… well, me. I was spun out to hear about this behaviour, as this person is very experienced in kink and poly scenes and I expected a much higher standard of boundary awareness from them. I was also doubly dismayed, because they had approached me separately that night to compliment my show and catch up for a minute and I had chatted happily away to them, completely unaware they had been making my butch feel uncomfortable and disrespected. I could see she was bothered by it, and deeply resented and disliked being touched like that and not having her ‘no’ heard. it made me madder than hell! she insists she is fine, but I am wondering how to handle it, as I just don’t think it’s acceptable conduct and I know the organiser would be deeply upset if she knew, as she strives to make the event a safer space for everyone. this again plays into taking responsibility for our conduct in shared spaces. the possibility this person saw me and my butch together and that factored into their behaviour – maybe they considered her a likely sort, or it more acceptable because of the connection – isn’t lost on me. as I said, we share many friends (several of whom were also there that night and socialised with them) and many of those friends would be appalled at their behaviour. here’s the thing: butches can be shy, and yes they can get flustered by flattering attention. but a no is still a no. don’t fucking touch someone when they’ve said no. if they’re still figuring it out, mauling their neck isn’t going to help.
unfortunately, the night overall was a little difficult for my butch. she had brought two friends with her, a butch-femme couple who have been together only a few months and are still very new to the community, to the role-system, and clearly felt intimidated and awkward in the space. showing up in jeans and t-shirts, they teased my butch for her tie and vest – again causing her discomfort – and reeled once in the room, as many butches there were in similar raiment, and many femmes in finery. at New Years, we had all been at the same party, a few of us standing up on a fence, slick with rain, to watch fireworks in the distance. when they were done, I turned to step down and my butch came forward, offering her hand to help me. she said afterwards the femme had been watching with an expression mingled jealousy and longing. as I stepped down, I heard the femme behind me say to her butch: “you better help me down too” – but just as she was saying it, her butch rather daintily extended her hand to my butch for assistance as well. at which point, the femme forewent the step and jumped straight to the ground, declaring “I’ll do that, thank you very much!”, stepping in front of my butch to grab her lover’s hand. it’s incidents like this and others my butch has told me about, where it’s clear they are interested in this dynamic but unsure how to proceed, being so inured in mainstream lesbian community where it is ridiculed and undermined, that prompted me and my butch to encourage them to come along that night. but, unsure and adopting bravado, they spent most of the night keeping to themselves, laughing quietly to each other, talking during the acts and generally being more than a little belligerent. it upset my butch greatly, as she had invited them into something that is intimate and personal for us and they were less than respectful. while irritated about it, I think some of the evening gave them food for thought, especially as there was a comment or two about relating to some of the content. if they can get past the internalised stigma that still exists against butch and fem identity in a lot of lesbian community, they might find themselves or an exciting new journey. or they might not. it’s really up to them. at most you can let people know it’s okay. if they didn’t see that for themselves in that room that night – oh well.
I had an awkward moment or two of my own besides. I recently had to end things with another lover and set a very firm boundary of no contact with her. a difficulty of mine as I work towards recovering from a variety of traumas is ascertaining when I’m actually in danger, or when I am possibly projecting out of hypervigilance and paranoia. when a red flag is real, and when I’m imagining it. in the last few years I have abruptly cut contact with people and shut them out of my life in reaction to incidents where I felt emotionally endangered, and in hindsight I feel I have been too quick to do so on some occasions, where I have had trouble interpreting what is real and what is induced by fear. I have been trying to adopt a gentler, more balanced approach, considering what elements of my responses are borne from trauma. as a result of this, I suppressed a lot of my intuition with this butch, waved away the red flags that appeared almost immediately, telling myself i was being too judgmental. as it turns out – I wasn’t. extremely manipulative, coercive and entitled, things came to a head recently when she sexually assaulted me in a way that – besides being upsetting and terrifying on its own – was triggering of an actual rape I have experienced. then started lashing out at me when I ended things. in reflection of the complexity of community dynamics, I haven’t spoken about this assault except to a few trusted close friends, and don’t plan to take any action on it, except to speak honestly about my experience of her as being manipulative and coercive, if asked. there are a lot of factors playing into that decision. as an aside, when conferring with another femme friend who works in the domestic violence sector to confirm my interpretations of this butch’s behaviour as abusive (she thoroughly agreed and revealed she had witnessed other unacceptable behaviour by this butch in different community spaces), she commented that “a whole lot of toxic masculinity was going on”. I don’t agree that this is a useful or accurate way to position butches within our community, but it certainly wasn’t the right time to launch into discourse on the subject. my opinion is that her issue is more a sense of entitlement and an inability to respect boundaries – behaviour that anyone – and that many do – can demonstrate, in spades. I’ve certainly known more than one femme to be just as bad. the whole thing has further reinforced to me how easy it is to ignore gut instinct and fall for the same old bullshit, even if you’ve already been through it in the past – so much of it comes down to wanting to believe the best of others and take them in good faith, especially when allowing for what traumas they’ve dealt with too. balancing my own opinions against the more damaging concepts that have taken hold in queer community is additionally at times a tricky challenge that requires tact and consideration.
at any rate, during the intermission between the first set and the second, she approached me as I was on my way to my butch’s side, a glass of champagne in her hand that she thrust upon me. when I last spoke to her I made it clear she was not to approach me, so I was seriously dismayed by this aggressive and difficult to deflect gesture. I told her no, that it wasn’t necessary and I didn’t want it. she shrugged and pushed the glass in my hand saying “just to be nice”. because this woman’s central issue is not being able to hear somebody’s “no”, no matter how it is expressed, or why. her last words to me had been that I was ugly and unlovable, at which point I had cut off all contact and told her to leave me alone. that she thinks giving me a glass of champagne smooths over months of bad behaviour towards both myself and friends of mine is typical of the melodrama rollercoaster many people unfortunately seem to enjoy and constantly engage in. I don’t. people often seem shocked that I stick to my guns and mean what I say when I draw a hard boundary. but, contrary to the sense of excitement and validation many people find in a constant cycle of tempestuous interpersonal dynamics, I find it exhausting and tiresome and if someone repeatedly demonstrates not one shred of responsibility for their own behaviour, I tend to walk away. rather than being a gesture of goodwill, this was yet one more example of this person being completely incapable of respecting the simplest boundary. I was glad she disappeared after that and I didn’t see her again for the rest of the night.
I bumped into another ex-lover there too, a non-binary transmasc person who constantly overcompensates for their anxiety by adopting a swaggering machismo that can be by turns very attractive and deeply off-putting. I’d been discomfited by certain aspects of their behaviour in the wake of our hookup, the pillowtalk including their sneering attitudes towards butches and attempts to engage me in undermining them. post-orgasm is not when I want to be blindsided into having to launch a “call out” on someone who should at the very least know when to pick their fucking moments. it plays into an existing history of transmasc people expressing contempt and derision towards butches, often all too clearly considering them the lesser-realised versions of themselves, their own non-woman identity and alignment with maleness conferring them with a “more” masc superiority. the very leveraging of this attitude has been hugely impactful on many butches over the years and very much plays into the trend of gnc afab people disidentifying with womanhood and characterising the butch identity as something embarrassing and shameful. Butch/Stud as an event is itself a reaction against that, an ongoing effort by the organiser to counteract the stigma directed at butch identity. I often feel intensely frustrated with this person and their macho charade, but at the same time their incredibly obvious vulnerability and uncertainty about themselves – the discomfort in their own skin – softens my response to them, makes me forgiving and permissive where I might more concertedly distance myself from another. honestly, I wonder what tenderness might be revealed if they just dropped the affectations of defence for five minutes. they’ve certainly shown me unprompted kindness in some of my low moments, I’ve met their children, they do some important work in Indigenous community – and while they left the event not long after my performance, they sent me a lovely message saying how generous and hot it had been. I kinda want to smack them and tell them to stop all the bluster – they can be safe without it. at the same time, I get it. it’s very hard out there and I know the difficult complexities of their life have had an instrumental role to play here. the first time they met my butch at another event, they whispered in my ear “uh oh, am I about to get punched?” I was so taken aback I was barely able to laugh it off. no, no – it’s not like that, it shouldn’t be like that. I find it kinda sad that this attitude of hostile competitiveness with other masc people in the community is how they’ve learned to relate over the years. and it is something that absolutely reflects less savoury parts of our history. we all bear our own scars from it, in our own ways.
I was proud and pleased to share the stage with a variety of amazing performers, including a young butch i had met for the first time at last year’s event, after she reached out to me here on tumblr. @weirddyke charmed the audience immediately with a poignant personal story of her first suit. she opened the show so beautifully, I was listening backstage as I brimmed with nerves, feeling so excited to hear a talented young butch’s perspective. she got an incredible response from a very appreciative audience. while our lives don’t often overlap, it’s always lovely to see her out and about, pursuing her own path.
on the other end, the show was closed by another friend of mine – someone who has been femme identified for a while and lately feels compelled to explore a masc side, finding more resonance in a non-binary identity as they learn more about themselves. dragging it up for the first time, they delivered a powerful live vocal performance that brought the house down. they recently had taken a difficult stand, leading to the end of a friendship – a monthly event has been drawing increasing controversy with offensive shows, the most recent being a yellow-face performance complete with puerile accent affected. a number of people in the audience, including my friend, stood up and walked out. while the event organiser has taken public steps to acknowledge how unacceptable this was and account for her failings as an organiser, in private she considers herself bullied and the show itself to have not been “that bad”, leading her to lash out at my friend and accuse them of cynically leveraging social capital rather than genuinely caring about the issue of racism. I’ve been supporting them behind the scenes as this has all played out and it was good to touch base in person as it is all very fresh and has led to them experiencing a great deal of anxiety. lately, I’ve found a number of people asking me for support in different ways and it’s reinforced to me how community connection can be nurtured, and affirmed a sense that I can offer something useful and helpful to others. Lundy Bancroft, one of a tiny handful of men I consider might actually be truly decent, has a new book coming out soon on recovering from trauma. he posted a quote from it on facebook recently about how so much of our pain can result from being denied giving others the love that we have to give. that really powerfully resonated for me, and has been further meaningful as I reflect on how being able to offer support of different kinds gives me a sense of fulfillment not found elsewhere. when others are lifted up by our love, we learn that our love is meaningful and powerful, that what we have to offer is considered by others to be something they value in their lives. and that is a very special and healing feeling.
there were so many other people I knew, including this really cute yet unavailable butch I crushed on sooooo hard last year, friends from out of town, people I met last year but haven’t seen again – and all of us gathered together because the identity of butch has some significant and personal meaning in our LBTQI lives. community is such a crucially important element of our lives and I am so incredibly grateful that, as someone who suffered a great deal as a result of being isolated from others, I have been able to reconnect and immerse myself in it once more, reaping the benefits that meaningful attachments to other human beings lead to. the way that Butch/Stud contributes to strengthening community on a macro and micro level makes me so thankful to live in the time and place that I do. my wish for all LGBTQI people, most especially all you beautiful butches and fems out there, is to find your own community and, through that, realise how special and important your unique life is, as revealed in the intricate, interconnected web of being involved and interested in each other.
persistently fem 